Passing Through the Flame (79 page)

The naked and half-naked people watching them quietly drifted away, granting them an invisible bubble of privacy. Magic began to dissolve with the thinning fog; people were becoming aware of their own nakedness, looking at each other strangely, moving back to their tents and sleeping bags. The nearby couple was still balling in the grass, but now people were self-consciously looking away, and their rhythm was becoming hurried.

The moment was gone. The presence that had created it had passed from the scene.

“Bill... Bill... Jesus....” Susan blinked, and shivered, and buried herself in the protective crook of his arm. “Oh, babes, that wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it was...
her.”

“I know.”

“I’m so scared.... Am I flipping out... or was it real?”

Gently, he led her through the crowds of people, who parted before them, smiling shyly with downcast eyes, wanting to reach out and touch them, but now lacking the courage to dare. And yet... and yet still glowing with the memory of where they had been, where Star had taken them.

“Whatever happens is real, babes,” Horvath said. His words rang with inner truth in his own ears, but he didn’t know what they meant. He didn’t know what was really real at all.

Paul Conrad sat bolt-upright in bed, his skull throbbing, his ears ringing.

“Oh, Jesus Christ...” Sandy moaned, rolling over and burying her face in the pillow.

“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”

“What the—”

“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”

Paul’s brain cleared well enough for him to locate the source of the jackhammer pounding in his eardrums; he reached out to the night table and turned off the alarm clock.

“Where the hell did you get that thing?” Sandy grunted, rubbing her eyes. Paul checked the time—six forty-five—threw off the covers, and bolted out of bed. The bare wooden floor was cold under his naked feet, his knees were rubbery, and his eyelids drooped painfully over his eyeballs like sandpaper shades.

“What’s your hurry?” Sandy said, pulling the covers back over her.

“Gotta set up and start shooting before eight.”

“You can’t have had more than five hours’ sleep.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, “I feel like shit. But that’s a luxury I can’t afford till Monday night.”

He went into the adjoining bathroom, turned on the shower good and hot, washed down five milligrams of Dexamyl with half a glass of tepid water, and brushed yesterday’s cruddy taste out of his mouth while the little room filled up with steam.

Dim memories drifted through his brain—Sandy going down on him, something horrible about it, bad dreams of Gentry playing with his cock, tossing and twitching all night, tight muscles all over his body—he rinsed his mouth out with Lavoris and spat the residue into the sink. God, what head trips went on yesterday! What I’m going through to get this thing shot! I’m frying my brains.

But worrying about that is another luxury I can’t afford till Monday night.

He stepped into the shower and let the steam and hot water turn his skin bright pink, wash the stale air out of his lungs, relax his aching muscles, make him feel lightheaded and floaty. He was beginning to feel almost like a human being. A tremor of unease went through him as he soaped his loins and felt vague stirrings, but he blotted it out and melted into the wet warmth of the shower stall. When the heat started to feel uncomfortable and energy-sapping, he braced himself, then turned off the hot-water tap while turning on the cold full force. The blast of cold water hit him like an electric shock, snapping his pores shut, jolting his body to full wakefulness, popping his mind into sharp focus.

He jumped out of the shower and lathered his face for shaving, already feeling capable of facing the day.

Sandra Bayne blinked blearily at Paul as he emerged from the bathroom at a near run, toweling himself off, bouncing on the balls of his feet, radiating a nervous energy and physical vigor which gave her a headache to watch at this godawful hour. How can this be the same man as last night? she wondered. Not enough energy then for even a quick lay, and five hours of bad sleep later, he’s running around in overdrive.

“How do you do it?” she said.

“Do what?” Paul said, tossing aside the towel and putting on a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt.

Sandy glanced at the clock—six fifty-five. Urk. “Face seven o’clock in the morning.”

“Would you believe clean living?” He pulled on his shorts and pants. Sandy made a groaning, eye-rolling face.

“Well, would you believe a little speed and a lot of determination?” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and putting on his socks.

“You’ve been reading Dale Carnegie?”

Paul twisted around to face her. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got four days at this thing to get the footage I need. I know I can afford to collapse Monday night, and I know I can’t afford to let down at all before then. So I’m living off my body for four days. I’ll make it up later.”

“You’re a deliberately driven man, eh?” she said half-seriously, kissing him lightly on the lips.

“You could say that.” He kissed her back, stepped into his shoes, and double-timed toward the door. “See you later.”

“You can live off your body for a while, love, but watch your head,” Sandy said. Paul gave her a quizzical look, then ducked out into the hall, snapping the door shut behind him.

Sandy collapsed back onto her pillow, wondering if she knew this Paul at all, wondering if this Paul knew himself, or whether he was moving too fast even to think about where his head was going. If that’s what it’s like to be a creative person, I’m glad I’m just a working flack. She pulled the covers over her head and burrowed into the cozy warmth of the bed.

By ten thirty the sun had burned away the morning fog, the grass was just about dry, the sky was a clear cloudless blue, and the temperature was inching up to eighty degrees. Ten or twenty thousand people were sprinkled around the natural amphitheater listening to the mediocre local groups scheduled for the morning performances. The air was fragrant and delicious, and Barry Stein was just about able to forget that he had spent the night alone.

He met Ivan outside his tent on the way to search out some breakfast—Marlene, Ivan’s groupie-of-the-night, apparently was a heavy sleeper—and after eating some Granola and coffee at a little makeshift breakfast counter, they walked up to the top of the great bowl and stood there looking down the slope at the stage far below.

A group was playing acoustical soft rock that filled the air with gentle guitar runs and aimless throbbing bass notes, low-decibel music that maintained a constant level no matter where you were, evenly distributed by the grid work of pole-mounted speakers. Not very good, but nice and soothing—it was like having an amateur group fooling around a few yards away wherever you walked, a gentle love-in in a park out of a bygone era.

“Let’s walk around,” Ivan said, flexing his arms over his head, bare-chested in the warm sun. Stein nodded, took off his own shirt, and tied it by the sleeves around his waist. Slowly, they began walking down the slope in the general direction of the stage. The sun began to warm Stein’s flesh, and everything but the warmth, the soft music, and the people goofing in the meadow below seemed a little hypothetical and unreal.

“How do you really feel about tomorrow?” Stein asked as they descended the slope past a circle of people who were sitting on the grass passing joints around.

Ivan cocked his head at a girl holding one of the joints. She nodded pleasantly, handed it to him. “Keep it, man,” she said.

“Have a nice day.”

They continued down the slope, moving diagonally to the right, nodding to a young couple, passing the joint back and forth, kicking idly at bits of debris. “You mean about what happens after we take the stage or Sargent’s tactics?” Ivan asked.

“You know what I mean,” Stein said.

“Yeah, well, Sargent is one tough hombre, you’ve gotta give him that. I think what he’s planned will work.”

“But is it right to start something as dangerous as that?”

Ivan shrugged. “You know what Lenin said about omelets, revolutions, and eggs.”

“I also know what Cleaver said about being part of the solution or part of the problem, and I’m beginning to worry about it.”

“Come on, Barry, admit it, you’re pissed off because he’s balling Ruby. You wouldn’t like
anything
he came up with.”

“I’ll admit I don’t like him,” Stein said. “And maybe I’ll admit I’m jealous. But can you honestly say
you
like the son of a bitch?”

“I think he’s the kind of dude who gets his thing done,” Ivan said. “I can admire him for that.” He slapped Stein across the back, stuck the joint in his mouth. “Get off it, man! Forget the whole scene. Have a nice day.”

Stein took a hit off the joint, laughed, shoved it in Ivan’s face. “Have a nice day yourself,” he said. The grass was good, the sun was warm, and the music, if not terribly professional, was mellow. What the hell, Stein thought, Ruby isn’t the only woman I’ve ever wanted who was balling someone else, and she won’t be the last. No reason to let it bum me out, no reason to lose perspective.

They wandered aimlessly along the slope of the hill, not really trying to get anywhere, just digging the sun, listening to the music, picking up on the vibes of the people, and getting a little high. It was a lazy morning. People were dozing on the grass, smoking dope, holding hands, sipping a little wine, just hanging out. It was hard to imagine what this scene had been like yesterday, what it would be later on today, when the sun was high overhead, and the temperature hit ninety degrees, and this parklike scene became a packed saucer of thoroughly stoned people, a high-energy caldron of heavy music, human flesh, dope, and sexual vibrations, a critical mass of humanity waiting for something to trigger them to communal action.

Right now, though, with the temperature still comfortable, the music low-key, and only scattered groups of people sitting around like picnickers in Griffith Park, a revolutionary action here seemed about as probable as a
coup d’etat
in Switzerland.

“Hi, Barry, what’s happening?”

Stein turned at the sound of Ruby Berger’s voice, and the sunshine went out of his day as he saw Chris Sargent standing beside her like a black thunderhead. “Hello,” Sargent said coldly.

“How’s it going?” Ivan said, handing Sargent another joint he had plucked at some point from a passing hand. Sargent took it, folded his legs under him, and sat down. Ivan dropped to the grass beside him, and Stein reluctantly followed suit. Ruby sat down right beside Stein, with Ivan between herself and Sargent, giving Stein a warm smile. Under the circumstances, it was certainly weird.

“Got my end ready to roll,” Sargent said. “And you?”

“No sweat,” Ivan said. Sargent passed the joint back to him, looking down into the great depression at the stage below, where a new group was setting up.

Ruby lay down on her side, so that she was facing Stein, with her back to Sargent. With her right hand, she patted the ground, a clear signal to him, and Stein lay down on his side, facing her. Ivan and Sargent passed the joint back and forth; Ivan just digging the scene around him, Sargent studying the stage below. The new group started playing—amplified guitars and bass, and a sitar, a loud droning music that established an aural screen of privacy around Ruby and Stein.

“Have a good night?” she asked, a sly smile on her tough, hard-edged face.

“Not as good as you,” Stein said sourly.

“You’re mad at me.”

“Why should I be mad at you?” Stein said. “All you did was make it clear that you preferred him to me and that you thought I was some kind of schmuck.”

“Last night, you
were
some kind of schmuck. You were looking for an excuse to be pissed off at Chris.”

“You really like him, don’t you?”

“He’s a good lay. He even gives pretty good head.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

She laughed. “Try him and find out.”

“Very funny.”

“You’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Well, then you’re horny,” she said, touching his hand. “Admit it. You’re being grumpy because you didn’t get laid.” Stein stared into her hard, uncompromising eyes. Ruby stared evenly back. She ran just a fingernail of her free hand up along the zipper of his fly, very slowly, so that he felt himself swelling under it like a puppet on a string.

“You’ll have to ask me nicely,” she said.

Stein instinctively glanced at Sargent—just for a moment—but Ruby caught the movement of his eyes, shook her head, frowned. “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t
you?”

“A little,” she said, “but it’s just enough to turn me on. Right now the idea of balling
you
turns me on because I
am
a little scared of Chris. I don’t know what he’d do if we went off together. Do you have the balls to find out?”

“Is that an offer?”

“No,” she said, suddenly grabbing his crotch with a vigor that made him groan with pleasure, then once again glance nervously in Sargent’s direction. “I told you, you’ve got to ask me nicely, if you want to fuck me.”

“All right,” Stein blurted, as she squeezed and kneaded him, all caution gone in the heat that she was bringing to his loins, the challenge to his manhood that she was flinging like a gauntlet into his face. “Would you please come away and ball me?”

“That’s more like it,” Ruby said, rolling over onto him, pressing her mouth onto his, and forcing her tongue between his startled lips.

“What the hell’s going on around here?” Sargent snarled, and Stein’s lust became hopelessly intertwined with visceral fear.

“I’ve decided to ball Barry this morning, Chris,” Ruby said.

“What?”
Chris Sargent stood over the two of them, trying to figure out what to do, what to feel. Poor goddamn Stein looks ready to shit in his pants, and well, he should, I’ve got a good mind to pull his prick off and shove it down his throat. But Ruby was studying his reactions with a cold eye. Is that what she expects me to do? What kind of game is this anyway? How do I win? How do I lose?